Geerusalem was a camp of many people of many waspish dispositions.
The engrossing business of making money and spending it kept this
isolated desert settlement steering a more or less wabbly,
law-abiding course, for, like frontier camps the world over, it had
its furious six-shooter forays, stealthy knifings, mob uprisings,
its denizens of dive and den. These things were simply because civic
unity was an unknown quality at the time, the population of the
fly-by-night variety, and the county officials too busy serving the
communities where the majority vote held forth to concern themselves
with the “scattering returns.”
Established before the “blue-sky” law was written into the statute
books of California, this metropolis of Soapweed Plains was the
Mecca of the “wildcatter”—that thrifty, gentlemanly rascal who
tempts gullible men and women of other climes to invest their nest
eggs in mining stock fit only to start the kitchen fire. These
gentry were the leading citizens of Geerusalem, though their
neighbors knew them for what they were; autocratic, pompous fellows,
skimming just under the surface of the law, clever swindlers who
paid homage to none save the mining engineer and the occasional
moody geologist who dropped unannounced into camp. A mineralogist’s
O. K. was a valuable thing to have on a stock prospectus.
The .45-caliber brains with which Lemuel Huntington hobnobbed,
belonged, for the most part, to these wildcatters—promoters, they
styled themselves. He was their standing joke, their dub, the
something at which they could sling the garbage of their talk. From
which it may be surmised that he did not rank very high in the
estimation of this fraternity. Yet, heretofore, he had felt oddly
gratified over the thought that he could associate with them; they
were “big guns,” financially powerful, influential to a great
degree, and they had seemed, to his way of thinking, to be exemplars
of education and refinement.
This morning, however, as he rode into camp from his ranch, on what
he had led Dot to believe was a borrowing expedition, his viewpoint
had undergone a change. He was a far different Lemuel Huntington
from the tolerant, good-natured dub of yesterday. He had captured
the terrible, much-feared desperado, Billy Gee. He had won a
comfortable fortune by his bravery. His Dot was going to receive
that long-dreamed-of education. His breast was filled with it; his
head reeled with his own importance.
Geerusalem was seething with excitement. The main street was clogged
with men, discussing Huntington, Billy Gee, the holdup of the
paymaster’s car, the dramatic entry at daybreak of captor and
captive while shotgun posses scoured the country over a fifty-mile
radius. It was a monumental “catch,” unprecedented in Southwestern
history.
As Lemuel rode into view, some one recognized him. News of his
presence in camp spread like wildfire. A crowd surged after him,
gathering in size. He had not expected an ovation of such an
enthusiastic nature, and it embarrassed him. He wished now that he
had come in by a back street. His face flaming red, flustered, he
looked about over the heads of that stream of humanity that soon
packed the thoroughfare from sidewalk to sidewalk, acclaimed him as
he rode along.
He spied Mrs. Agatha Liggs. She was standing in the doorway of her
little dry-goods store watching his approach. As he came opposite
her he smiled and raised his hat. Then he grew abashed. She had not
acknowledged the salutation. In the belief that she had not seen the
action he bowed again.
She was looking straight at him, and he thought that her thin,
pathetic face was unusually pale and drawn, that her fragile little
body was more stooped, that her lips were strangely pursed. She
looked at him fixedly with an expression in her old eyes so icy, so
accusing, as to make him feel foolish and uncomfortable. That look
of hers flattened out his conceit as nothing else could have done.
He rode on up the street to the bank, dismounted, and went inside,
wondering just why Mrs. Liggs had snubbed him.
The huge crowd that had followed him, collected before the building,
and watching him through the doors and windows, saw him cash the
Mohave & Southwestern’s ten-thousand-dollar certificate check. As he
came out the door, acquaintances began hailing him lustily. He heard
flattering comments of his valor on every hand.
“Gritty chap. You wouldn’t think it to look at him, would you?”
“Brought him in single-handed. Fine work, pardner!”
“Done overnight what a hundred posses couldn’t do in ten years.”
“Good boy, Lem! Oh, you Nick Carter!”
Crimson as a turkey gobbler, sweat streaming down his face, he led
his horse to a livery stable. Then he strutted down the plank
sidewalk, the mob stringing out behind him. Presently he entered an
auto-stage office, talked to the ticket seller about mileage and
rates, and ended by paying down the rental of a machine, to be ready
in an hour. Ten minutes later found him swaggering big-chested into
the U. & I. saloon—hangout of the .45-caliber brains of Geerusalem.
He glanced boldly around at the uppish fraternity, posed about,
fastidious and blasé, deigned them a nod and ordered a drink. This
was the red-letter hour in Lemuel Huntington’s life.
He leaned luxuriously against the bar, peeled off a bill from his
great wad, and to those who came up to congratulate him on his
daring feat, remarked with considerable loftiness: “Yes, I reckon it
takes somepin’ better’n edjucation to handle a man like Billy Gee.”
Downing his drink, he was turning to make his stately way out of the
place, when he heard his name called, and a familiar hand was laid
on his arm. He recognized a young mining engineer friend, a recent
arrival from San Francisco. With him was a tall sharp-eyed man,
twenty-seven or thereabouts, pleasing of face, and with a grave
courtesy that instantly marked him in Lemuel’s mind as a total
stranger to desert life. He was dressed in a whipcord suit that was
partly concealed beneath a voluminous dust coat. On his head was a
golf cap, a pair of goggles thrust up over the visor, and he carried
driving gauntlets in one hand.
“Mr. Huntington, meet Mr. Sangerly,” said the mining engineer. The
two shook hands. “Mr. Sangerly’s father is Western manager of the
Mohave Southwestern, and he wanted to thank you in person for your
splendid service to his company by your capture of this desperado,
Billy Gee.”
Lemuel rubbed his chin in awkward fashion. “There wasn’t nuthin’
much to it, Mr. Sangerly,” he muttered.
“Indeed there was,” declared the other. “Why, this outlaw has robbed
our trains eight times in the last three years. Besides our losses,
Wells Fargo has suffered greatly. You’ve done us what I candidly
look upon as an immeasurable service, and the general office is
being thoroughly informed on the matter.” He paused. “There was a
side issue relative to your capture that I wished to take up
privately with you, Mr. Huntington—if you have time, and if Mr.
Lennox,” glancing at his friend, “will excuse us.”
Three minutes later, they were seated across from each other in a
booth at the rear of the saloon, a table between them, the waiter
departing with their order.
“Now, to start at the beginning, Mr. Huntington,” said Sangerly,
coming directly to the point, “Billy Gee robbed our paymaster’s car
at a grading camp a few miles east of the station of Mirage. This
you doubtless already know. Well, Sheriff Warburton, who had been in
close touch with our Los Angeles office ever since he got on the
bandit’s trail a week ago, wired us the same night of the robbery.
From the tone of his message Billy Gee was heading north and his
capture would be affected within ten hours. That was the gist of the
thing. Anyhow, I started by auto yesterday morning. As it happened,
you beat Warburton to the honors. You brought Billy Gee in, but the
twenty thousand dollars he stole from our paymaster is missing.”
“I’d thought about that,” Lemuel replied. “On our way into camp this
mornin’, I asked him in pertick’lar what’d become of it, an’ he said
it was in safe hands.”
Sangerly lit a cigarette. “That’s what he told Warburton and that’s
what’s keeping me here. I’m going to find out, if possible, who has
that money. I intend to arrest the party as an accomplice and try to
get him—or her—a jail sentence. There’s not the slightest doubt in
my mind that this unknown person has been harboring the outlaw in
the past and has profited at the expense of our company. You heard,
of course, that he is supposed to have relatives somewhere on
Soapweed Plains?”
“I don’t believe it,” said Lemuel. “That’s what Bob Warburton was
tellin’ me. He said the only reason that folks got that idee, was
because after robbin’ a train, Billy Gee’d always head this way an’
disappear. But look at how far it is to the railroad! That’s all
talk.”
“Oh, I don’t think so, Mr. Huntington! Don’t forget that this is the
nearest point of habitation. Now, let me explain something to you.”
Sangerly took a pencil from his pocket and began mapping off the
table roughly. “According to the sheriff, with whom I had a long
talk before he left for San Buenaventura this morning, he followed
Billy Gee’s trail over every foot of the way—fifty-odd miles, and
barren desert all of it. By barren, I mean flat, sandy country, and
lacking those landmarks which would tempt any outlaw, hard-pressed,
to hide his plunder. Moreover and most important, Billy Gee was
wounded—shot by one of the paymaster’s crew as he was riding away.
My opinion is, therefore, that he brought the money direct to your
ranch and——”
“I can’t see how you figger that out, Mr. Sangerly,” broke in Lemuel
hurriedly. “Ain’t you kinder insinuatin’ a leetle that I’m in
cahoots with a train robber?” he added in measured tones.
Sangerly hastened to correct the impression. He caught the other’s
hand, shook it laughingly. “The furthest thing from my mind, my
friend,” he declared. “Certainly, I couldn’t imagine an accomplice
doing what you did. It’s not reasonable. It would be ridiculous. But
just follow me and you’ll agree with me that my theory is correct as
to fact. Now, this is the exact situation: Here we have Billy Gee
with Sheriff Warburton at his heels—not over two hours behind, mind
you! Billy Gee is wounded, bleeding badly. He is traveling over a
country as flat as this table, where there is no chance of hiding
his booty with any assurance of ever being able to find it
again—lack of landmarks, you understand? And all the time he is
becoming weaker from loss of blood. From what little I saw of him
to-day it is a question in my mind whether he would have risked
getting off his horse to cache his stealings if he had had a chance,
through fear of not being able to mount again.
“Anyhow, it is certain he was far more concerned over getting his
wound attended to than he was about the money. So he must have
pressed forward as rapidly as his horse could carry him,
particularly since Warburton said that he had him in sight after
daybreak and up to the time he dropped off the mesa onto the plains.
Now, Mr. Huntington, the paymaster’s crew told the sheriff that
Billy Gee stuffed the twenty thousand dollars—currency, all of
it—into his saddlebags, and you brought him in without his
saddlebags, I believe.”
“That’s c’rrect,” agreed Lemuel, with a troubled frown. “I found
he’d crawled in my barn. Afterward, I located his hoss in the far
end of the field. But, it seems to me——”
“I questioned the sheriff carefully on that point, but he said that
all he knew was just what you told him,” interrupted Sangerly. “His
theory was that the fellow turned his horse into your field when no
one was watching and took the opportunity also of hiding his saddle
and saddlebags, later on finding his way into the barn to wait until
night when he might reach the home of his friend or relative
unobserved. That’s what I believe, Mr. Huntington. I am quite
convinced that Billy Gee cached that money on your ranch. He could
lie low at this rendezvous of his, and some dark night when the
whole affair had blown over, he’d simply slip out there and dig up
the treasure. A very natural step to take, in my opinion.”
Lemuel nodded slowly. “It sounds reas’nable, at that. An’ you aim to
look over the ground, I reckon, to see if you kin locate the cache.”
“Precisely. Warburton has promised me he’ll try to sweat the bandit
into confessing. Meanwhile, I’ll work on this end with two railroad
detectives whom I’ve brought with me. You’ll have no objections, of
course, if we spend a few days snooping around the place, Mr.
Huntington?” he asked smilingly.
“Not at all. Me an’ my daughter’s leavin’ for a two-week trip
to-day, but I’ll stick the key under the front doormat, an’ you kin
make yoreself to home.”
Sangerly thanked him. They left the booth and walked out to the
street together. As they parted, Lemuel said:
“When do you figger you’ll be out to the ranch, Mr. Sangerly?”
“This afternoon, some time. Be assured we’ll not abuse your
hospitality, and I hope to see you again on your return. By the
way,” he added, as an afterthought, “I understand you have a
daughter. Did she see Billy Gee, or have any idea of his presence
before his capture? I mean, had she noticed anything that would have
led her to suspect the presence of a stranger in the neighborhood?”
“No, sir,” said Lemuel, with a positive shake of his head. “She was
surprised when I told her. I had to show her the check I got, ’fore
she would believe me. I think you got it sized up about right; this
Billy Gee party jest watched his chanct, reckonin’ on a clean
get-away. He turned his hoss out along with mine to throw off
sespicion, an’ buried his swag where he could come an’ git it
unbeknown to anybody.” He laughed. “You don’t know my Dot, Mr.
Sangerly. If ever there was a real honest-to-goodness little lady,
she’s it—even if I do have to say it. I want you to meet her when we
git back.”